


The "Best Boss Ever" Mugs

by MattDoesFanfic



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: :), Carlos Likes Plants, Carlos is a Dork, Cecil Is Not Described, a bit of angst at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 11:31:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18548893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MattDoesFanfic/pseuds/MattDoesFanfic
Summary: Cecil has an enormously large collection of very specific mugs.





	The "Best Boss Ever" Mugs

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a Tumblr thread. Also hi I totally don't project my hobbies onto characters. NOt at all!

Cecil had a problem. Not a minor problem, but a major one. He had too many coffee mugs. Like way too many. It had started out as a small collection of 30 but now it probably numbered closer to a few hundered. He hadn’t intended to accumulate that many coffee mugs. He hadn’t meant to keep them at all. The original 30 had been intended as a gift for Station Management, one for each tentacle that waved from behind the door. Each of them was made of a pure white ceramic that had the words “Best Boss Ever” printed on them in bold black text. At the time, it had seemed like a thoughtful gift. What Cecil hadn’t considered was how to actually give the mugs to Station Management. He certainly couldn’t open the door to their office. That would have been a death sentence. He couldn’t exactly slip the mugs under the office door either as the crack under the door was too narrow to slid the mugs underneath. Cecil’s solution was to simply tell Station Management that he had 30 identical “Best Boss Ever” coffee mugs in his office in honor of them and leave it at that.

In retrospect, Cecil probably should have told the interns what the mugs were for as well.

The first intern to deliver a “Best boss Ever” Mug was named Kristoff. He was a more reserved sort of guy so instead of delivering it to Cecil in person, he left it on Cecil’s desk with a note saying that Cecil could “add it to the collection”. Before Cecil could explain the actual nature of his collection of “Best Boss Ever” coffee mugs, Kristoff’s body had been permanently encased by a sentient and malevolent two part epoxy sculpt. Cecil couldn't in good faith just get rid of the mug. So he had added it to his collection.

And that’s how the tradition of interns giving Cecil a “Best Boss Ever” Mug had started. Each year Cecil would have a least 20 or so new mugs that had been given to him by now long dead interns. He had no choice but to display them in his office, of course. It was the only way to honor the memory of the many deceased interns who had given their lives for the noble art of radio broadcasting. He had to keep them.

But now it was starting to get out of hand. His office had become covered floor to ceiling in “Best Boss Ever” Mugs and it was starting to get difficult to move around. He had to figure out some way to thin his collection down to a more reasonable number without being disrespectful to the memories of those who had given him the mugs.

It was Carlos that had suggested that maybe he could take some of the mugs home with him and use them for other things other than drinking coffee (for Cecil drank nothing but coffee). His argument was that he could bring a few of them home with him and the two of them could decide together what they could do with them. Cecil had conceded that it was a decent idea. So he’d brought some of them home with him the following day. One mug had immediately become the Toothbrush Mug. Carlos had argued that it wasn’t disrespectful to use the mug for such a purpose because dental hygiene was important. Cecil had to agree.

Carlos had also commandeered a goodly portion of the mugs to help with his growing interest in plants, more specifically cacti. Night Vale had a very diverse cactus population (according to Carlos) and he was determined to catalog all of them. Sure he wasn’t a botanist, but he was a scientist. So one day, he and Cecil had drilled holes into the bottoms of a few of the mugs and Carlos had planted small cacti in them. Cecil wasn’t sure what the deceased interns would have thought of this but seeing Carlos so happy and excited about plants had made the whole experience worth it. 

Carlos liked it when Cecil would bring home a new mug. It meant a new beaker to hold various chemicals or a new cactus pot or whatever else a scientist had need of coffee mugs for. Well besides drinking out of them, Carlos never actually used one of the “Best Boss Ever” Mugs for drinking out of. Which was a bit odd.

It was Cecil who had gotten the idea to repaint some of the mugs and turn them into sculptures. He’d used a variety of methods to reglaze and used non malevolent but still sentient two part epoxy sculpt to reshape the mugs into things like trees, ancient and unknowable gods, and even a little radio tower. That had been fun.

Cecil had regifted one of the mugs however. And the guilt of this would haunt him until his dying day. Well if he ever actually died that is, Cecil still wasn’t quite sure he could die. At any rate, Cecil had regifted one mug to Mayor Cardinal's assistant. She hadn’t been able to think of a good gift idea for Dana and Cecil had rather thoughtlessly suggested on of his “Best Boss Ever” Mugs. It had been a callus thing to do but Cecil didn’t much care at that moment. He certainly cared when Mayor Cardinal’s assistant had told him that Dana had recognized the mug as the one she had gifted Cecil.  

Cecil had never felt more embarrassed. “I’m so sorry, I didn't think she would have recognized it.”

“It’s alright Cecil.” Mayor Cardinal’s assistant had said. “She really liked it. She’d said that she had ‘come full circle’ and had thanked me for giving her such a kind gift. You actually really helped me out.”

“Oh,” was all Cecil could think to say.

Now Cecil could have just told the interns about his mug problem and asked that they not give him more mugs but he just couldn’t do it. Each intern had given him a mug and each intern had either left or died horribly. The little ceramic “Best Boss Ever” Mugs were his way of holding on to those interns. Sure it was selfish to hold onto a piece of somebody forever. And maybe it was strange to reuse and repurpose each individual mug rather than simply throw it out. But they were all he had left of the interns he would inevitably grow so very fond of. And he wasn’t about to lose them a second time. 

So Cecil would continue to collect mugs as long as interns kept giving them to him.


End file.
